


Lost and Weird and Wondering

by qilathe



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 15:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1862247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qilathe/pseuds/qilathe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos is a minor god of weirdness. Or perhaps a new member or reincarnation of the Great Old Ones. It's hard to tell the difference, really. And being a god isn't all that it's cracked up to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Weird and Wondering

**Author's Note:**

> Rob McKenna is this random rain god who doesn't know he is a rain god who is mentioned for a hot minute in one of the Hitchhiker's Guide books. The Great Old Ones, Outer Gods, and Elder Gods are three different sets of gods in the Lovecraft mythos. Reading the Necronomicon is supposed to be very dangerous, both to one's health and to one's sanity, and is generally not advised. Weird is frequently used interchangeably with Eldritch in reference to Lovecraft's work.

Rob McKenna is Carlos' hero. Well, not his hero, per se, but the guy that when Carlos identified with when he read about him as a child in third grade after his eighth move since he started school. It was the first time that Carlos thought he might know what was up.

By sixth grade, Carlos was sure. Partially because his classmates and teachers tried to burn him at the stake for witchcraft, but mostly because when he read stories everyone's lives seemed inordinately mundane. It was not, according to these stories—and the news—normal for a town to kick a family out of town, or to attempt to burn an eleven-year-old boy at the stake, or (as happened Carlos' junior year of high school) for a group of goth teenagers to start worshipping one of their classmates.

Carlos finished high school, read the Hitchhiker's Trilogy for the hundredth time, and went to college.

He went to a big university and lived twenty minutes off campus, out of town. For his safety, and for the safety of others.

He took a classes on H.P. Lovecraft and studied science, looking for any rational explanation for what was happening to him. He graduated and still didn't have an answer, so he went to grad school: first in psychology, then biology, then chemistry...

Biochemistry. Physics. Five PhD's and no answers. His parents wanted him to go into the real world, to stop being afraid of change, to get a job. They didn't understand, or they had forgotten. Carlos studied Lovecraft and Adams and King. He got a job as an adjunct at one private liberal arts school, and two years later at another, and then another three years after that, each time being “downsized”, but everyone knew that wasn't why he was leaving.

Wherever Carlos went, there was weirdness and abominations and death, and he couldn't get tenure if his life depended on it.

His mother died of cancer. Four years and three universities later (the weirdness was getting worse), his father died of a heart attack.

Three years after that, Carlos ended up on the tenure track at a college in New England called Miskatonic University, where he taught chemistry alongside colleagues who taught Necromancy and forbidden literature, and Carlos realized that Lovecraft must have known more than he was letting on—it wasn't LSD and sleeping pills, it was reality, or a part of it.

Then, just seven months into his new position, Carlos was asked to leave. Politely, but in no uncertain terms. Carlos' attraction for Eldritch horrors was putting undue danger on the students and faculty, Carlos must understand. He couldn't stay here, and he shouldn't move on to any more academia, either.

“To minimize your risk to others, you should stay away from them,” the dean told him. She looked at him with kind brown eyes, frowning. “I wish it could be different.”

And Carlos did leave. He went to the middle of no-man's-land in the arctic circle in Canada, and let the horrors and strangeness abound, paying it little mind. He did research there, published some papers, but mostly stayed in his cabin in the arctic, running solely on a wood heater, water bottles, and beans. He was lonely, and it was awful, but at least out here he wasn't being run out of town. He couldn't be rejected when there was no one to reject him.

Then he got a letter—how, he wasn't sure, but he'd stopped questioning these things long ago. It was from a place called Night Vale, a town which had requested his presence as a scientist after a recommendation from the nice dean at Miskatonic University.

So Carlos called the Dean at Miskatonic—he was far out of cell service and had never had electricity run out to his arctic house, but that never seemed to have any bearing on whether or not he could use electrical appliances—and she said that she had indeed recommended him. “Night Vale is the only place I think you could be around people,” she told him. “It's so weird, they'll probably not even notice a change.”

Carlos frowned, unsure. But before he could say anything, she added, “I'll have the mayor and City Council sign a form where they swear not to burn you at the stake, stone you, or sick the Hooded Figures on you if they want you gone. They'll just ask you to leave.” She hesitated. “I don't think I can do the same for A Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency, though.”

“Okay,” Carlos said. Maybe because this was the first time he'd spoken to someone in two years. Maybe because it had been pitch black outside for 18 months of those two years, and freezing for all of them, and Night Vale was supposed to be in a desert.

Maybe it would even stay a desert, Carlos thought (hoped), though he didn't believe it.

“Excellent!” the dean exclaimed. She must have felt guilty. “You'll probably be one of the older people there, as there's such a high death rate...” she began.

“No,” Carlos told her. “I haven't aged in fifteen years.”

“Oh,” she said, like she wasn't expecting that, but also wasn't surprised. “Well, I'll book you a flight here to Miskatonic as soon as possible. Where are y—?”

“Don't bother.” Carlos frowned at his shoes, which had inexplicably changed color. “I'll pack up here and be at Miskatonic as soon as Ngirrth’lu or one of his Lupine Ones deigns to take me down south.”

Carlos could hear the dean shiver on the other end. “Very well,” she says, though she sounds like she'd rather he just take the flight she'd offered. “Night Vale will be ready for you any time until last week.”

“Okay,” Carlos says, because he was so used to the strangeness of his life that he didn't even question it.

“Okay,” she responded, sounding like she really didn't want to talk to him anymore.  
  
“Goodnight,” he said, though he had no real conception of what time it actually was. He hung up before she could respond.

–

All of Carlos' possessions inexplicably fit in his backpack. His books, his clothes, his computers, his bed, his desk... Carlos' stuff had always fit in his bag, whether it was an entire contents of his parents' enormous house or the books he took to class—his stuff always fit in the bag, and the bag was always full. Carlos had never questioned that kind of thing.

Ngirrth'lu took Carlos back to Miskatonic himself. No one on campus saw him until he was in the dean's office.

She jumped when he knocked on the open door. “Oh, Carlos, you startled me. I didn't see any wolves, so I didn't expect you.”

“They'll stay invisible to most people as long as I don't stay in one place too long,” Carlos told her. The fact that 'they' referred to _all_ outer gods, and not just to Ngirrth'lu and his Lupine Ones went unsaid, though the dean seemed to hear it anyways. Maybe the room or Carlos' mind said it for him.

“Yes. Well. Let me take you to the entrance to Night Vale.” She led him down the hall to a door that didn't seem to lead anywhere except open space and a four story drop. Carlos wasn't worried, though he thought she should be.

The dean flung the door open. “Well, there you go,” she said.

Carlos looked out on a desert town, felt the heat radiating in, burning off the rest of the cold from his bones, and smiled. “They're expecting me?” he asked.

“Probably,” she responded. “Sometimes the portal takes you to a different time, but usual it is within plus or minus one week.”

Carlos turned to her, grinning. It was probably a slightly deranged grin, but he didn't care. “Thank you.”

“Yes,” she agreed, suddenly impatient. “Now please leave before you bring some terrible horror down upon us.”

Carlos nodded and walked through the door.

It disappeared behind him. The dean gulped.

Later that day, they found the Necronomicon missing. After the dean explained about Carlos' visit, the university decided it was in safer hands.

After all, they'd tried to get rid of Carlos by having him read it, and he had gotten to the end and read it again, no worse for wear.

–

Night Vale was perfect.

Well, not perfect, exactly. Probably, not perfect at all. But to Carlos it was the best thing he'd ever experienced. There was a dog park that no one could enter, terrible hooded figures, angels, and a five-headed dragon, and most of that had been around since before Carlos had arrived. No one questioned him. No one noticed any change in the level of weird activity since Carlos had arrived. Even the fact that whoever voiced Night Vale Public Radio was inexplicably in love with him was wonderful.

Carlos wasn't generally the type of person to be swayed by stupid romantic crap. But on the other hand, all of the romantic advances previously made towards him had been made by idiot teenagers who worshiped C'thulu, Aphoom-Zhah, or any other Great Old Ones that they stupidly referred to as Elder Gods.

One had even claimed that Carlos was a new member of the order of Elder Gods. Clearly, in Carlos' mind, these people knew nothing.

But not only did these people know the _proper_ names of the gods and Great Old Ones, they also didn't seem to think that Carlos was strange apart from his concerns about Night Vale's clocks and his belief in mountains. They thought that Carlos was a strange outsider, and Carlos was just trying to stick to science and pretend that none of this—none of his own personal brand of weird—was his fault. He'd read the contract the City Council and Mayor Pamela Winchell had signed, and noticed early on that it didn't preclude them from throwing him into the Dog Park or into the bottomless pit out behind the Ralph's.

They didn't, though—throw him to his doom, or realize that he was bringing doom to the town. And maybe he _wasn't_ bringing doom after all. (It was hard to tell with these things). But for the first time in years, he got to know people and be connected to people, and have a _life_ , just like anyone else. Well, anyone else in Night Vale.

Night Vale, beautiful and perfect Night Vale, was turning into a home Carlos never though he could have.

–

Cecil was a problem. Okay, that's overstating things and putting too much of it on Cecil. The people of Night Vale were a problem. Cecil calling him beautiful and perfect was endearing at first, but now all of Night Vale was doing it, and Carlos was starting to get inclined to board himself up in his house and never leave.

Maybe he was paranoid. Maybe this was what real life was like. Carlos didn't know, and he didn't much care. He wasn't going to throw away his one chance at freedom for a little more security of mind, so he allowed himself to be called beautiful and perfect, for his hair to be called beautiful and perfect, for his teeth to be called beautiful and perfect. At night, when he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, ignoring the lights overhead and the screams outside, he also pretended that the town wasn't obsessed with him. The people weren't calling him beautiful and perfect, and the only person in love with him was Cecil. The others' weren't pretending for Cecil's benefit, because it was only Cecil that found Carlos beautiful and perfect. That's what Carlos chose to believe at those times, anyway.

And Cecil—Cecil was the one thing that made all this worth it, stupidly enough. Carlos didn't see him for months after he arrived in Night Vale, but when they first met in person, Carlos was already in love. He didn't know how to be in love, though. He only knew how to do science and will the Eldritch horrors away with his mind, so he stuck to those things that he knew for a long time.

Too long, because then he nearly died without saying anything to poor Cecil, who along with the rest of the town didn't know that Carlos couldn't die and couldn't age, and who almost lost his mind when he thought Carlos to be dead, and so then Carlos confessed his feelings and—much to Carlos' surprise—Cecil seemed to actually like him, regardless of Carlos' weirdness attracting properties.

Of course, that may have been wishful thinking, because Carlos didn't tell Cecil about it. How could he? Cecil couldn't possibly understand. Or could he? No, it was too much of a risk. Right? Right. Carlos read the Hitchhiker's Trilogy and Lovecraft and the Necronomicon with the cover from The Fault in Our Stars hiding the cover, agreed to say “Okay? Okay.” with Cecil, and generally pretended that his life could be normal. With gritted teeth and force of will alone most of the time, but he pretended it nonetheless.

Carlos had the Necronomicon on him when he went into the house that should not exist. For Cecil's safety, if nothing else.

He didn't really count on the radical turn StrexCorp would make, but how could he have known, really?

Because he was Carlos. Because he was Carlos, some Outer God, or perhaps a minor Great Old One, and he knew—he should _know—_ that wherever he goes, trouble follows. StrexCorp wasn't something people knew about until Carlos showed up. Carlos was sure of that, at least.

–

Intern Dana found Carlos wandering the wastes of this strange other world, and brought Carlos back to Night Vale. Carlos couldn't tell Dana why he needed to stay there, because he couldn't explain it to her in a way that she would understand. He couldn't explain it, anyway, and if he was going to try, he was going to explain it to Cecil first.

Carlos had hoped not to have to see Cecil again, to never have to explain it, but now he had no choice. Not without actively breaking Cecil's heart, and he couldn't do that. Damn his humanity and his stupid emotions! What was the point in having minor Eldritch powers if you didn't also get a lack of humanity out of it, anyway?

Back home, after the revolution against, and overthrow of, StrexCorp, Carlos sprawled on Cecil's couch, reading the Necronomicon with a The Fault in Our Stars sleeve over the cover, waiting for Cecil to come home.

“You're reading TFIOS again?” Cecil asked, picking up Carlos' legs, sitting on the couch, and putting Carlos' feet in his lap.

“No.” Carlos swallowed, knowing it was now or never. “It's the Necronomicon. I just put a The Fault in Our Stars cover on it.”

“I know.” Cecil smiles at him, rubbing at the arch of Carlos' left foot with his thumbs. Carlos sighs as the kinks in his sore feet are released.

“Um,” Carlos stammers. “I. Um. I wasn't expecting that answer. I.”

“You bring the weird with you,” Cecil supplies. “I know that, too.” He leans over and brushes a stray lock of brown hair out of Carlos' eyes. “What's the matter, sweetie?”

“I can't stay.” Carlos says it all as one word. “StrexCorp gained power and influence because of me and I can't stay and let them or something worse come to Night Vale and—and—”

“Destroy it?” Cecil suggests.

“And hurt you,” Carlos murmurs. “I can't. It's just—It's not safe. It was never safe. _I_ was never safe. I can't—I—”

Cecil interrupted Carlos with a kiss. “You know, Night Vale isn't really any more dangerous with you here rather than not. _I_ am certainly safer if you're here. The Horrors like you; they don't want to hurt me.”

Carlos shakes his head. “No, you don't understand—”

“No, _you_ don't understand,” Cecil interrupts. “It'll hurt me if you leave, and not just because I love you. I, personally, have had far fewer near-death experiences since I started dating you. If it weren't for your friends in high—or as it may be, low—places, I wouldn't have survived _this._ You haven't brought danger to Night Vale, you've brought safety. There have been fewer deaths since you got here. The Great Old Ones and Outer Gods like you, and you are happy here. You can't make it weirder, so you make it safer.”

Carlos bit his lower lip, and after a moment, accused, “You're just saying that.”

“Carlos,” Cecil said. He waited until Carlos met his eyes. “I'm not.”

Carlos saw the truth there and sighed, relaxing back against the couch. “Thank you,” he murmured, eyes closed against tears and something else.

Cecil kissed Carlos on the forehead and went back to rubbing his feet. “I love you, Carlos.”

Carlos popped one eye open, looking at Cecil as he rubbed his feet and watched Carlos' shoulders rise and fall with breathing. “I love you, too, Cecil.”

Cecil grinned, and everything about it was perfect, and (if Carlos hadn't already been in love), he would have fallen in love instantly.

 


End file.
